Memory Lane
by Incy Little Spider
Summary: ...and he was wearing this red and green sweater, all dirty..." as his child whispered those words Donald Thompson was plagued with memories. Of a man who he said hello to every morning, who lived right down his street. Who he thought was normal. Oneshot


Nancy had heavy black bags under her eyes and she was as pale as a ghost. She clearly hadn't had a wink of sleep since Tina's death. I felt my stomach clench with fatherly concern just thinking about it. I didn't want my little girl awake all night. I wanted her to be okay.

"You saying someone else killed Tina? Who?" I asked squeezing her shoulders. Her blue eyes darted with manic fear and I looked at Marge who was standing in the church car park. My ex-wife looked scared and very tired. I almost felt sorry for her.

"I don't know who he is," Nancy whispered, her body trembling.

"B-but he's all burned…and he wears this weird hat…"

_Kru…_

I swallowed hard. Weird hat like a...like a fedora? No…don't be stupid.

"…and a red and green sweater all dirty. He uses knives…like a glove or giant fingernails."

Marge's face had drained of all it's colour. Her mouth was hanging loosely open and her eyes were wide. No…not…

We played cards with that guy. He came one evening and got drunk with me and the rest of the guys. I used to tease him about that god-awful sweater he insisted on wearing.

"Did you hear 'bout Larry Munroe?" I asked him one night. He wasn't looking that good, I remembered. His weird hat was filthy and he hadn't shaved in awhile. He had taken a swig of his drink and grinned.

"Yeah," he replied in that slightly creepy, nasal voice.

"Poor kid," I said as the men around us grew quiet, thinking about the late Larry. He was found in the basement of the local high school. His throat had been torn out and his clothes ripped to shreds. It was like a sick joke…Larry had always been a talkative kid.

"Only fourteen years old," a man muttered talking a swig of drink. I shuddered.

"He was in the same class as my little Elise," the man went on and I thought I heard him choking up. I saw Freddy looking out at him from under the brim of his hat. His eyes had turned beady and small.

"Elise?" He asked casually. The man looked up.

"Yeah…she just had her birthday last week. I've-I've got a picture here somewhere," he rummaged around in his wallet and pulled out a photo. He passed it over the table into Freddy's grubby, grimy hands. I looked over his shoulder to take a look.

Elise was dressed in a pink leotard. I remembered she did gymnastics every Saturday. Her long blond hair was swooped into a bun and she was grinning at the camera, arms outstretched. She was about to do a handstand and her green eyes were bright and happy.

"She's beautiful," I said, smiling. Freddy didn't say anything. I remember how he trailed one dirty finger down the girl's chest and his blue-grey eyes darkened.

"Beautiful," he echoed and I suddenly felt uneasy. The men didn't seem to notice but when he passed the photo back I saw he almost did it unwillingly.

A week later I remember seeing him in the local playground. He was reading the paper and watching his little girl over the top of it, making sure she didn't hurt herself.

"Daddy look at this!" She shrieked as she balanced on the see-saw.

"That's great, Princess," he muttered back, sliding his eyes towards me as I sat down next to him. He nodded slightly at me and I smiled weakly back.

"Not many parents are letting their kids out anymore," I said. He grimaced…or maybe he smirked, I thought later on.

"Yeah…scared I guess," he replied scratching at his hand. He had a slightly wolfish, predatory look in his eyes that I didn't like.

"Dad! Daddy! Can we go get ice-cream, pretty please!" His little girl tugged at his arm startling me slightly. His eyes flickered and he suddenly switched, a mask going over his face. Now he radiated fatherly charm.

"Now, sweetie you just had lunch before," he said sternly, ruffling her hair. Her face dropped.

"I better be off," he said, standing up. Gripping his child's hand so hard, I saw the girl wince he started to walk down the street, half dragging the kid behind him. I heard her shrill protests and suddenly felt cold. He didn't seem to notice the girl saying that she didn't want to go home or that he was holding her hand too hard.

Maybe he did…maybe he did hear her whimper that he was hurting her. Maybe he took some sick, perverse delight in knowing he had total control over the young child. Maybe he felt a twisted, sadistic pleasure knowing that he was crushing the girls hand in his much stronger, much bigger one.

I thought about all of this later on when I was watching him in court. His lawyer sat next to him and the judge leered down from his seat.

They had caught him crawling out his basement window, his clothes covered in blood clutching that awful glove to his chest. Someone had called the police when they heard screaming from the Krueger's household. The police found an entire secret workshop down in the basement filled with newspaper clippings and different versions of his glove.

I remembered that they had discovered the shredded remains of a pink leotard tucked under his pillow in his bedroom. I also remembered running to the toilet to throw up when I saw it.

In the interrogation room he didn't say a word.

"No comment," he whispered when I showed him everything we found in his basement. His lips turned upwards into a sickly grin when I showed him the leotard.

I punched the sick bastard in the face. I got into a lot of trouble over that. But it was worth it just to see the blood splashing down his face and his eyes narrowing with hate.

In the courtroom his face was blank and expressionless. They found him guilty for murder of the twenty kids . Not for rape or child molestation. We all knew the creep probably did more then just kill the poor children, but the jury didn't have any evidence that he did.

Penny Carmichael who was found in her best church clothes hidden in the bushes outside of the chapel, her legs spread obscenely apart. She was seven.

Ronald Peterson who was a star at football and used to deliver my papers every morning. They never found his body but they discovered what might be his burnt remains down in Krueger's basement. He was sixteen.

Sally Roberts who every young boy wanted to go out with. She had long red hair and had gotten top marks in her Maths test. Her proud parents had boasted about how clever she was and what a bright future lay ahead of her. She was found in her prom dress, mouth wide open with horror, one blue eye gouged out.

So many kids…so many lives.

He was set free on a technicality. Someone didn't sign in the right place. Set free just like that. The local papers took his picture as he strode out onto the street as free as a bird. He turned to grin at them under the wide brim of his hat. He rose his hand and waved like he was a normal human being.

We all got together…we all tracked him down. I remember pouring the gasoline and Elise's father lighting the match. Marge was drinking and sobbing. She had put little Nancy to bed and hour ago. Nancy was only a few months old.

_What if she'd been older? _I thought grimly to myself. I felt horror rising in my stomach. _What if she was alone in the front yard one day and Freddy was walking past. _I felt sick enough to throw up. _What would he do to her? Would he steal her innocence away?_

His face leering down at Elise's photo flashed in my mind. His finger tracing over her chest and down her thigh. His eyes burning with an emotion that I couldn't describe. A hunter.

His child's face flashed in my mind as he dragged her down the street. Her face was scrunched up in pain as he yanked at her arm, ignoring her whining. No…he wasn't ignoring her snivelling protests. He was relishing every sound.

I heard his shrieks of agony from outside on the grass. We smoked and listened. A smirk of pleasure lighted up my face as I listened to the dying man go up in flames.

Marge had his glove in her lap. She was staring at the sparkling knives with no expression. He must clean them after every kill. He must treat the instrument of torture like it was his own precious baby. I had the sudden urge to toss it into the flames.

I had never felt happier that night. We all looked at each other, our faces bathed in the hot, orange light. We all smiled at each other, tears prickling in our eyes as the crackling of the flames and the hollow screams echoed through the night.

Nancy was looking at me now…her eyes wide and exhausted. Her hair has messy and scraggly and her face was pinched and pallid. She looked terrible.

How old was the first victim? Fifteen…Nancy's age. You could hear her parents sobbing that whole week after they found the girl's body. It was stuffed in a garbage can in the alleyway outside their house. All her hair was ripped from her head. What was her name? Dear God I couldn't even remember.

"I think we should keep Nancy at home for a few days," I muttered, my voice low. Nancy's face fell immediately. Eerily similar to when Freddy Krueger's girl was refused ice-cream.

Marge was staring at me now and I had never seen her so scared before. Guilt was etched across her face and I knew she was going down memory lane as well.

"Til she's really over the shock," I finished and I thought for a moment that my little girl was going to burst into frustrated tears. I hardly heard Marge's next words…I hardly noticed Nancy's face pressed up against the window as the car drove away into the distance.

We killed him. I listened to him die. I did it so he could never come near my little girl ever. I did it so he would never be able to inflict her through the nightmare the other children had been forced through.

I did it cause he was evil. Evil always lost…good always won. That's the way things worked. Right?

He couldn't be back. Right?

…right?


End file.
